By Gareth Vaughan
ANZ, the country's biggest bank, is a laggard in the key growth area of mobile banking with ASB leading the way.
This is a feature of research by Optimal Usability, a user research and design company.
And Optimal Usability's CEO Kris Nygren told interest.co.nz in a Double Shot interview that another key finding of his company's research was that some customers may move their business to another bank for a better mobile banking experience.
"Probably the most surprising and interesting finding from our research was the number of people who we tested apps with who said 'look, I really like this, this is so easy, maybe I should change bank.' And that was quite a surprise to us and interesting, and possibly scary if you're a bank," Nygren said. "If you get left well behind then you might be in trouble."
He noted a study from research company TNS showed about a third of New Zealanders bank via their mobile phone.
"So that's well passed the earlier adopter tipping point. And I think that you're going to find that users will push their bank to get to do what they want on mobile apps," said Nygren.
In terms of ANZ Nygren suggested the group appeared to have been "caught out a little" and was "falling behind a bit" in the mobile app sphere with the focus on a smooth end to the popular National Bank brand perhaps taking precedence.
"Interestingly they (ANZ) were probably the market leader, they were the first off the block. Really what they need to do is broaden what you can do on their app," said Nygren. "It's pretty thin on features at the moment. It comes out as well designed, users don't struggle really, but you just can't do enough and they've got a way to go to catch up."
'Significant update' coming from ANZ
An ANZ spokesman said improvements to ANZ's goMoney mobile app were in development and customers could expect a "significant update" later this year for both iPhone and Android apps. Former National Bank-branded customers are also able to download and use ANZ's goMoney.
Optimal Usability evaluated and scored all New Zealand mobile banking apps, that provide core personal banking functionality, across five criteria. These were 1) the features provided, 2) the platforms customers can use to access mobile banking such as iPhone or Android, 3) user ratings provided in the likes of the Apple App Store and on Google Play, 4) usability, and 5) interaction design.
In the first category TSB Bank came out top. In the second category BNZ, TSB and Kiwibank scored well. In the third category Westpac and ASB, whose apps are each available on four platforms, came out top. In the fourth category, usability, where Optimal Usability recruited real customers, Westpac and ASB came out top. And in the final category - essentially looking at how well designed the app is in terms of what the user wants to achieve - ASB came out on top.
"On balance (overall) ASB comes out top," Nygren said. "Westpac and BNZ score well, (but) banks who don't have a lot of resource like TSB, struggle. And ANZ seems to be caught out a little with the merger with the National Bank and are falling behind a bit. But they are promising to do something about it."
The banks were given an overall customer experience score out of 100. ASB got 77.8, BNZ 68.8 and Westpac 67.4.
"The ingredients for success we think are quite simple. You really need to have a good understanding or empathy with your user," said Nygren. "Understand what your customers want when they deal with you full stop, but specifically when they use your mobile apps."
"You also need to design for context - I might be doing banking while I'm standing on the bus, or sitting on the bus, so you need to take a different design approach. And the third thing is you always, always have to test it with your users thoroughly to make sure they can use it the way you intend them to."
Optimal Usability has provided services to all of New Zealand's big five banks - ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank and Westpac.
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9 Comments
Once they all offer apps which are at least adequate, then it probably isn't a good enough reason to change. However, until that point, I would say it is. A friend of mine, who is financially literate, changed last year for this very reason - he changed banks after seeing my bank's app. If I was with the same bank he was, I would have done the same thing.
It's more than just the convenience of the app as well - if they haven't figured out how important having a good mobile app is, they are behind the times and I would question other parts of how they do business.
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